Seeing in Color
by LawliPop
Summary: Akefia knew it was hopeless, yet he could not help falling in love with his master's son. [Akefia x Ryou ] [See note inside].
1. Akefia

_A/N: I don't think a story like this has ever been done before - which is both a good and a bad thing, I suppose. Good because it's unique, and bad because I'm afraid readers might not find it interesting. ; The idea has been in my head for several months now, and I've only just gotten around to writing it down. This is my second fanfiction dealing with Akefia - and, I'll warn you, he might seem a little bit OOC, but he is only a child in this chapter, so that's his excuse._

_PLEASE do not assume me to be a racist or anything like that because of this story. This fic takes place in the 1700s when slavery was predominant in the US. Both Akefia and Mariku are slaves, and so are not treated with much respect. Characters will be referred to according to their race - whether it may be "white boy" or "nigger" (though I'm trying to avoid racial insults as much as possible). So if this offends anyone, I apologize. That is not my intent. I am NOT a racist in any way, shape, or form._

_With that said, I will move on to the chapter...__

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**Seeing in Color  
- Chapter One.**

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_I always knew I was going to be a slave. I was destined to become one, I suppose you could say. I never met my father – I suppose he was sold just after I was conceived – and two years after my birth my mother was taken. I was too young then to understand what happened to her; now I wish I was as ignorant as I was back then. _

_Some kind soul must have taken pity on me, being an orphaned child, for I was sent away to live with a small clan of Arabs. _

_Life was simple with the Ishtāru clan. They treated me kindly, and I grew to become a part of their close-knit family. There were six of us in total, including myself, and the oldest woman was heavy with child. We were nomads, traveling with no set destination – our only desire being to flee the slave traders and stay alive a day longer. The problem with that was we eventually ran out of places on land that we could hide, and going over seas was an expense we couldn't afford. We were forced underground as a last resort. _

_By that time, the pregnant woman had given birth, and several days later passed away. Her husband tried to kill the babe, but his oldest daughter – Isis, who was at the time only five and already the spitting image of her mother – was able to convince him not to._

_We lived underground, the six of us, for an amazing six years before our hideout was finally discovered by a group of white Americans. The man I had come to view as my own father was killed almost immediately for trying to protect us. It was the first time I had ever witnessed murder, but certainly not the last. _

_The remaining five of us, all children except for Rishid who was now sixteen, huddled together in fear of being killed - or worse, separated. The men were happy to find a female in our little group. Having come from over seas, they hadn't seen a woman for quite some time. They took her first. Brought her into another room, where we could hear her crying and screaming four hours until suddenly, strangely, all the noise stopped. _

_We never saw her again. _

_The group of men came back outside, but she was not with them. I thought that would be the last of it, but I was far from correct. Some of the men were not satisfied with her; some of them didn't like women. _

_Malik had always been pretty. Ever since the day he was born, he was pretty. His skin was dark and soft to the touch, like an infant's. His hair was long, reaching down to his shoulders, and silky too - the color of gold. And his eyes were big and round, like jewels – amethysts, to be exact; they looked like amethysts. _

_Naturally they chose him next. _

_He was never the same after that - after he limped, bleeding and disheveled, out of the room the men had dragged him into. I guess his spirit broke; he had no will to live anymore. _

_The men seemed quenched of their lust for flesh after that, but they hadn't had their fill of torturing us. _

_It was punishment, they said, as they bound our hands and feet, kicking us onto the ground and taking knives from their pockets. Punishment for trying to hide from our destinies. _

_They heated their knives with the torches hanging on the walls, and then brought them down on our bodies – branding us, you could say. _

_I'd never felt more like an animal. _

_Malik died from the pain before they could even finish carving his back. Across his shoulder blades were unfinished angel wings, still freshly bleeding. I'll never forget that sight._

_On the left half of Rishid's face they carved crude impersonations of hieroglyphics, most likely to mock his ethnic background. _

_Mariku, the brother only a year older than myself whose appearance was nearly identical to that of his younger brother, received markings similar to Malik's – only instead of angel wings, the wounds along his shoulder blades more closely resembled the wings of a bird – in addition to several new ones. I never really figured out what they were supposed to be, but they looked like monsters – three gruesome monsters – as well as an ankh in the very center of his back, and hieroglyphics that matched the vulgar impersonations Rishid bore._

_I received nothing so terrible, because I did not try to fight back as Rishid and Mariku had tried. I was too weak after witnessing the deaths of three people I held very dear. I submitted. _

_They used their knives to scythe my hair – my hair that grew even longer than Isis's, my hair that Malik always used to love playing with. They hacked it off from the base of my neck, and that was all they would have done had I not started crying. But the tears that stung at my eyes could not be held back as I thought of how I would never again feel Malik's soft, small hands in my hair, or hear father teasing me about how I looked more like a girl than his own daughter, or see Isis's beautiful smile. So two men held my arms down, and another placed each of his hands on one of my cheeks to steady my face, and the man with a dagger brought the burning metal down onto the right side of my face, mutilating it from the forehead down to my chin with a horrible, jagged scar. _

_We, the three remaining brothers, were led out of our underground haven, our wounds still fresh and bloody. The bodies of our loved ones were left where they had fallen, forgotten and left to rot beneath the sands. On the surface more white men gathered, waiting for their comrades. Rishid was pushed in one direction, Mariku and I in another. _

_I cried out to him -- I cried so hard, screamed for him to come back to us, to not leave us alone._

"_Rishido! Rishido! ...**Rishido**!"_

_I was clubbed in the back of the head by an unseen truncheon and fell immediately silent. Mariku's hand managed to find my own despite the bindings still around us and he held my hands tightly as they shoved us down a seemingly endless dirt road. _

_He kept whispering that he was there for me, that he would never leave me. I hadn't yet stopped crying. _

_We boarded a small boat that took us up the Nile. I fell asleep against Mariku, who hadn't even shed a tear throughout the entire ordeal. Mariku was always strong, fearless. He was the strongest of the Ishtāru siblings, always had been, even if he was the second youngest. From that boat we moved on to another boat, one so large that I found myself amazed as I stood before it. I had no idea humans could build something so large and magnificent. _

_The ship took us across the ocean, a journey that took so long that I lost count of the time. In the lowest level of the ship, where we were crammed with hundreds of others who had been through the same thing as us, it was nearly impossible to differentiate between night and day._

_Mariku never relinquished his hold on me. We sat, chained together and to those on either side of us, with our arms tightly wrapped around each other. Whenever I'd begin to cry or panic he would kiss my brow and try to reassure me. But I was inconsolable a majority of the time. _

"_Things will get better," he would tell me. _

_And maybe he was right. Because then we reached America. A country so many people thought of as the land of promise. Mariku and I were not divided, as I feared so often we would be. We were brought to a slave auction and purchased by a white man by the name of William Bakura, one of the wealthiest men in the South._

_William Bakura was one of the kindest men I had ever met in my life. He took us to his estate - gave our naked bodies clothes, our starving bellies nourishment, and put a roof over our heads. He didn't treat his slaves the same as most folks did, he explained to us after Mariku demanded to know the reasoning behind his kindness. Mariku still kept his guard up – in fact, he never let it down. I on the other hand wanted to believe in the goodness my new master seemed to possess. _

_We were put to work, of course. Six days a week we spent out in the cotton fields from dawn till dusk, picking and picking and picking until I began to think my fingers would fall off. Sundays, because we were still children, we were granted the privilege of rest. We would stay in our little hut, or sometimes wander off into the corn fields, and play together. _

_It was on one of these days, when we had ventured into the corn fields, invisible to all when between the ears that sprouted taller than us, that I first met him. _

"Mariku..! Mariku..!"

Young Akefia pushed aside a shoot of corn, peering through the stems and leaves in search of his friend. He stepped back when he found nothing, a small frown appearing on his dark-skinned face. Gray-blue eyes lit up as the child heard a rustling behind him. Grinning, he turned around and, without thinking, pounced. His arms went around his victim, pinning him to the ground, and a look of triumph crossed his features.

"A-_ah_!"

The soft, startled gasp reached his ears, causing Akefia to blink and look down at the form beneath him. The slave's light eyes grew impossibly large as he realized that he had tackled not his best friend, but the son of his owner.

Akefia had never gotten this close to Ryou Bakura before. The only time he had ever seen the young boy was when he was first brought to the estate, but Akefia could not mistake the white-blonde hair and deep green eyes for anyone else's.

Ryou was staring up at him, his emerald eyes full of fear. Akefia, seeming to regain control of his senses, immediately pulled himself away from the smaller boy and dropped to his knees, humbly begging forgiveness.

Ryou slowly brought himself up, sitting upright, and stared over at Akefia. The panic ebbed away, gradually being replaced by a sense of innocent curiosity all little boys seem to possess. He leaned closer to the dark-skinned boy. Akefia – who, upon guessing he was safe from punishment, moved so that he sat on his knees – unconsciously leant backwards, away from the owner's son.

This, much to Akefia's surprise, caused the delicate boy in front of him to smile – a lovely sight indeed. Two pale lips split apart, revealing twin rows of perfect, even teeth – only one black hole evident from where the slave boy sat, but evidence of a new tooth was poking through the light pink gums.

Akefia ran his tongue experimentally across his bottom row of teeth, counting five empty holes – whether or not more teeth would grow to fill them remained a mystery; many of the slaves were toothless, Akefia just hadn't taken notice of the fact that he was missing quite a few as well, and that if he could count any higher he would realize that he was missing even more than five.

A gentle touch to his cheek broke the slave boy from his thoughts. Blinking his pale eyes, Akefia focused on the owner's son, tilting his head slightly to the side in mild interest as he watched Ryou lean even closer, the smaller boy's large green eyes alight with sparkling wonderment.

Ryou's powder-white fingers gently and tentatively skimmed his cheek, his full pink lips falling open to form a lowercase 'O' as his eyes stared calculatingly at the dark-skinned face of one he was supposed to be nowhere near.

It was forbidden for him to be near the corn fields; it was forbidden for him go near any of the slaves, much less touch one – his mother told him so many times. But Ryou was a little boy – a curious little boy – and like all curious little boys he felt the urge to break the rules every once and a while.

Akefia sat patiently, allowing the boy to caress his face – partially because he was afraid to pull away and risk upsetting his owner's son and partially because, deep down, he enjoyed the gentle touch. He was not used to being touched like this by anyone. Not even Mariku, who held him so often, was so gentle with him. Gray-blue eyes closed slowly and the slave's lips twitched upwards into a smile.

After several minutes, Ryou abandoned his scrutinizing of Akefia's face in favor of inspecting the older boy's hand. He grasped hold of the dark-skinned appendage, studying it with his mystified emerald eyes. Deftly, he traced each of Akefia's fingers, examining the dirt packed underneath the larger boy's long fingernails, before grazing the palm – a shade lighter than the rest of his hand – and memorizing the unique lines that crisscrossed the skin.

He seemed so fascinated with Akefia's hand that he had to carry his investigation harder, rolling up the dirtied sleeve to see Akefia's arm, and then tugging down the torn collar of the battered T-shirt to study Akefia's shoulder – which he pressed against his own, as if to survey the differences between them.

All the while, Akefia was unable to tear himself away – despite the fact that he knew he should, that he knew this was wrong and that he would certainly be whipped if anyone caught him. This was, after all, his master's son staring upon his filthy body, touching him with those pristine white fingers.

All coherent thought ceased as Ryou pressed Akefia's hand against his cheek, rubbing it softly with his round, button-shaped nose.

The slave boy's face heated up in a dark blush.

However much he would have liked the moment to pass, it was rudely interrupted by the grainy drawling of Akefia's name.

The corn shoots rustled as another body pushed through them, emerging in the small clearing after several moments. Mariku stood before the two younger boys, his outlandish lavender eyes impossibly wide and his mouth hanging open in surprise. From his parted lips dangled a thin, foot-long piece of hay.

A flicker of anger and another, unidentifiable emotion crossed the oldest child's face as he quickly analyzed the situation.

"A-Akefia!" he reprimanded, storming forward and grabbing Akefia's free hand, wrenching his friend away from their master's son. "What in God's name you think you're doin'?"

Akefia stared up at the blonde, shaking his head and trying to stutter out a response. "I-I-I was... I was jus'..."

"Just touchin' that white boy as if he was the same as us!" Mariku supplied, his voice dropping to a low hiss as he slapped Akefia's arm.

"B-but... I wasn't..."

"Yes you was! You know what'd happen if the white boy's father came out? He'd have you whipped – maybe even killed!"

Akefia gasped, the full realization of what he'd done finally sinking in. What had he been thinking? Allowing Ryou to be so close to him... Their proximity could have gotten Ryou into trouble as well.

"I'm sorry," a little voice spoke up, breaking up the older blonde's chastising. Two heads turned to the left to stare at Ryou, who was picking himself up off the ground. Those lovely green eyes had grown round with guilt. A light English accent seeped into the words. "I didn't mean to cause trouble."

Mariku's eyes angled in a slight glare. "Well trouble's all you gonna cause, white boy."

"Mariku," Akefia pleaded. He didn't believe it was wise to speak to the master's son in such a manner.

Ryou shook his head, holding up his arms in surrender. "I-I don't want trouble," he said, honestly. "I was just... I've never seen a slave up close..." his voice trailed off and he sighed and apologized once more.

"Just get outta here," Mariku advised. "We don't want no trouble."

The white-blonde child was reluctant, but he agreed and begrudgingly turned away, soon disappearing in the tall ears of corn as he made his way back to the main house. Once he was out of eyeshot, Mariku rounded on Akefia.

"Are you stupid or somethin'?" he asked, slapping the thin arm once again. "You gunna get yourself killed, if not for me."

Akefia lowered his gaze to the dirt ground sadly. "S-sorry, Mariku."

"Don't say sorry to me... Just don't be stupid next time. Now c'mon."

Taking Akefia's hand tightly in his own, Mariku began to lead them in the opposite direction. The younger male followed obediently, though his grey-blue eyes were forlornly locked on the last spot where he had seen Ryou.

_I knew I was in love with him from that very moment. I was only eight, but the feelings I felt were unmistakable. There was just something about the way he looked at me with those big emerald eyes, the way he held my hand and studied my features... the way he treated he, as if I was a human and not some alien species, as if I were his equal... it touched me beyond words. He was so pure, so beautiful... I couldn't help but fall in love with him, with that warm feeling of acceptance he instilled within me. I wanted nothing more than to feel that over and over again, every moment of every day for the rest of my life. _

_I knew I had to see him again. Just one meeting between us was not enough to satisfy me. Now that I met him face-to-face, now that I heard his gentle voice... I needed more. I needed him – Ryou Bakura. I knew the odds were against me, that I could very easily be shot if I ever dared contact him again. But I didn't care. I was in love. I was a slave child, in love with my master's son. I had no way to give him a future, to give him happiness, even. I had nothing to offer him, the one I loved._

_... But I also had nothing to lose. _


	2. Ryou

_A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. I was honestly afraid to post this story because if the feedback I might get from it, but I'm glad to see that it has been well-received. I hope everyone likes this chapter as well. It told from Ryou's point of view this time. Enjoy! And don't forget to leave a little review... they make me feel good. :)_

_Warnings for the chapter: Usage of the word "nigger", but only on one ocassion.(Please see the note in chapter one regarding racism if you haven't already.) __Shouneni-ai/yaoi and implied sex between to young boys. _

_Here's some Q&A for the first chapter:_

Q & A

_**Q:** **How old are the characters?  
**__**A:** There ages vary in each chapter, though they are all speaking as adults (or at the age when they died) in the sections written in italics. In the previous chapter their ages were... Akefia: 8, Ryou: 6, Mariku: 9. In this chapter the ages are... Akefia: 14, Ryou: 12, Mariku: 15. _

_**Q:** **Is Ryou's father Yami no Bakura?  
**__**A:** No... Yami no Bakura doesn't really exist in this story – unless you want to count him as Akefia, which could be correct considering they're almost the same person. Ryou's father is his own character, but since I didn't know the real name of Ryou's father, I just gave him the name William. If anyone does know Mr. Bakura's real name, I would love it if they told me! _

_**Q:** **How could Mariku and Bakura be captured as slaves? They're Egyptian!  
**__**A**: I'm sure there were slaves taken from Egypt. After all, Egypt is a part of Africa. I have done research and to try and make this fanfic historically correct, but I wanted to keep some things the same as they were in the Yuugiou series (such as the fact that the characters are Egyptian/from Egypt). So, um... practice a bit suspension of disbelief, please!_

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**Seeing in Color  
- Chapter Two.**

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_The life of an estate owner's son is not as glamorous as one might imagine. Actually, it was quite boring in its strict normalcy. _

_I had a beautiful mother who, by nature, was rather quiet and reserved, but every bit as authoritarian as the schoolmasters who tutored my sister and me. My sister, Amane, was three years my senior and should have been born male, for she truthfully preferred playing in the dirt than learning to sew and sit like a proper lady, and she detested the dresses and petticoats and bonnets mother forced her into. My father was a kind-hearted soul, William Bakura – one of the wealthiest men in the South – and I his only son. _

_From an early age I was schooled in the basics of management and trade (among many other things, of course: writing, arithmetic, and French) in order to prepare for the day when I and my future wife inherited everything of my father's – the land, the money, the good reputation... and the slaves who helped maintain it all. _

_They'd frightened me as a child – the slaves, I mean. _

_Who were these people? I'd always wonder, clutching on to the hem of my mother's fashionable hoop skirt and attempting to hide within the voluminous folds: Who were these people in rags, with their dark skin, wearing chains?_

"_Father, send them away," I remember pleading, which had earned a hearty laugh. "They frighten me so, the devils." _

_Another laugh, and he ruffled my hair affectionately – he always said he loved my hair; it was so identical to my mother's – and leaned back to light his cigarette to smoke._

_We did not speak of them any more than that. Father would tell me the slaves belonged out in the fields and I dared not disagree. I would nod my head and cease cowering like a child, then rush to join my sister in a game of scotch-hoppers. _

_As time passed and I became a small adult, my fear of the slaves was replaced by an insatiable curiosity. I found myself fascinated with everything about them and never missed an opportunity to observe one. Of course, all my investigations had to be done privately and from a distance; if father or mother ever caught me near a slave I would be seriously punished, and I knew father would not have been merciful enough to spare the leather belt. Once he hit me with a birch rod when he found me and the neighbor's son Duke fist-fighting; he only hit me with it one time, but it still left a scar, which never faded._

_I had a difficult time keeping away when _he_ arrived at the estate._

_I don't even know what lured me to him. He was not exceptionally attractive – in fact, he was rather ugly, with the frightening scar that mangled half of his face and his several missing teeth – but he intrigued me nonetheless, especially after discovering his hair would match the color of my skin almost perfectly if not for the fact that it was always caked dust and dirt, making it seem more gray than white. His skin was darker than the skin of the boy he arrived with, yet extremely light when compared to the other slaves. _

_I couldn't maintain a distance from him very long. As the days passed, I grew more and more impatient, and developed the desire to meet him – speak with him, if he could speak, and touch his rich brown skin so dissimilar to my own. I wanted to hear his voice and feel his hair and his horrid, ugly scar._

_One day my curiosity got the better of me and I left Amane alone to the afternoon chores, very conscious of the impending punishment upon my arrival home, and ventured into the fields where the giant shoots of corn soon swallowed me whole and concealed me from the vigilant eyes of my guardians. _

_Able to only hear through the thick stalks, he mistook my approaching presence for that of his brother's and jumped out at me, startling me and tackling me to the floor. We landed in a clearing, just the two of us, and when he was no longer afraid of my presence – surely he knew who I was, after getting a look at me – I was finally able to receive my wish. Though I hadn't the opportunity to speak with him, I learned upon the arrival of his brother that his name was Akefia._

_A strange name, foreign on my tongue and difficult for me to pronounce at first. _

_Ake... Akiefya... Akee-fyaaaa_

_I practiced alone in my bedroom that evening, after I was certain Amane was fast asleep. _

_Akee-fya... Akee-fee-ah... _

_And soon my mouth could form the word without difficulty, the smooth syllables rolling past my lips easily and melodiously. _

_Akefia. Akefia. Akefia._

_I loved his name, and as the years went by I grew to love much more than just that. _

_We spent as much time together as we could, sneaking around in order to see each other when we had the time, causing mischief for his fellow slaves, which we always felt guilty for later on. We played scotch-hoppers and cratch cradle, and dueled with sticks, and rolled around in the grass. _

_Our favorite spot to play was in the corn fields where we had first met. Sometimes, if I snuck out at night to see him, we would lie there beside each other and watch the sky, pointing out certain shapes the stars made. _

_I told him stories – fairytales, mostly; the sort my mother told Amane and me when we were little – and he loved to listen, and so did I whenever he felt like talking, which in all honestly was not very often. _

_Akefia preferred to keep to himself, always afraid he might say the wrong thing to me. When he did speak, he tried to be proper, but there was crudeness to his language that always wormed through despite his attempts to suppress it. But I didn't mind. In fact, I found it refreshing; he spoke so coarsely, without the cordiality I was used to. _

_Over time he opened up more around me, enough so that he spoke his mind and told jokes. He was quite funny when he wanted to be and his jokes were easy to laugh at in their simplicity. I found I wanted to school him, so he may grow to be more intelligent than even the adult slaves on the plantation. This took years, of course, and many times I ended up losing my patience with him and storming away from the lesson. But I did have success in the long run, and it was worth it, I believe, for he was quite an eager student. When he was ten I taught him to count to twenty; by the age of twelve, he knew how to recite the alphabet perfectly. _

_On certain occasions I brought him books to read that were no longer of any use to me, as I was far beyond them in my reading level, but he could never read them no matter how diligently he studied the markings on each page. _

_Sometimes Mariku – not his biological brother, as I'd assumed, but still close enough to be – joined us when we played. Mariku was handsome, much more handsome than Akefia, but there was something about him I did not like – something I could never put my finger on, even when I thought long and hard about it. _

_I think he only tolerated me for Akefia's sake, and because he was afraid of me and the power I, as his master's son, had over him. Every time we met he would glare at me with his pretty lavender eyes and tell me he didn't want trouble. I never wanted trouble, either; I only wanted to spend time with Akefia. _

_But I saw the way he looked at him – at Akefia. Not in the sort of way a brother should. And I know they weren't exactly brothers, but Akefia thought of them as such. Mariku clearly did not and that became more obvious as we grew older. I began to recognize the sparkle in Mariku's eyes as jealousy. He was jealous of me, of the time I spent with Akefia; the time he wanted to spend alone with his cherished friend, I stole away from him. I was taking Akefia away from him a little bit more each day, and he hated it, and hated me because of it._

_I was blinded by any sinister plans he may have been formulating. Blinded by the love that overwhelmed my heart – my heart that would beat so, so rapidly whenever Akefia leaned close to me, touched me, whispered into my ear. _

_He liked to run his hands through my hair, and the gentleness when he did so reminded me of a toddler. I imagined someone, a child – a child that probably resembled Mariku, small and blonde with beautiful lilac eyes – used to run their hands through his hair in a similar manner. I liked his hair as well because, unlike my own, it was bushy and its texture rough; I enjoyed twining my fingers in the rough, thick tresses, holding them to my lips. _

_One evening when I was twelve, a rock hit my bedroom window. The noise was not too loud, but it still managed to wake me from my slumber and draw me to the pane. _

A small, powder-white hand rose to meet a foggy pea-green eye and gently the appendage rubbed away the sleep clouding the young boy's vision. Ryou focused on what lay beyond the glass of his window, a silent gasp escaping him as he spotted none other than the slave boy who unknowingly owned a sizeable portion of his heart. The white-haired boy blushed, wondering what Akefia could want at this time of night. Typically he was the one who suck out to meet with his slave friend, not the other way around. This was the first time Akefia had ever called on him.

Akefia stood, looking quite nervous, directly below the window, his ice-blue orbs wide with excitement and anxiety. When he noticed he'd captured the younger boy's attention, he waved a beckoning arm. Ryou appeared uncertain for a moment, before he nodded his head and set to work on unclasping the locks to the window.

After several moments, the window was pushed open and Akefia was helping his master's son to the ground, keeping a hold around the thin waist until he was certain Ryou was steady and balanced on his feet. Then he gently grasped the fair, thin wrist in his dark hand and started to lead the younger boy to their usual spot, moving quickly and quietly so as not to be seen or heard.

"Akefia," Ryou panted as he ran as fast as his short legs could carry him.

Akefia pushed aside the stalks of corn, still leading Ryou by the hand, until they reached the clearing. Releasing the boy, he smiled and turned to look at the sky. Ryou stared at him, wondering in the back of his mind what this was all about. Why had Akefia brought him to their clearing?

"Akefia," he said again, this time louder.

The older of the two children sat down in the dirt and then glanced to his friend, an unreadable expression in his foggy blue eyes. Ryou tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out what was going on. Why was Akefia acting so strangely? It was beginning to scare him, how serious the slave boy appeared all of the sudden. Weren't they going to play? Weren't they going to lie next to each other and point out shapes in the sky?

"A girl came by today," Akefia suddenly spoke, turning his focus to his bare feet, wriggling his toes.

Ryou's eyebrows furrowed together as he thought back on the day, remembering the Wheelers, friends of his family, had stopped by that day, and they had a daughter. "That was Serenity," he explained, easing himself onto the ground across from where Akefia sat. "She's my sister's friend."

Akefia nodded in understanding. "Is she your friend, too?" he wondered, peering over at the smaller boy through his white bangs in a manner which could be considered shy.

"I don't know," said Ryou, scratching his arm. "She's a_ girl_."

"You were holding her hand," the slave boy pointed out, "in the garden. I saw you together. She kissed your cheek."

Ryou's face flushed involuntarily and he placed a hand over the spot Serenity kissed him earlier that afternoon. "That was nothing. My father wanted me to hold her hand."

Akefia was silent for a moment, continuing to stare broodingly at his feet. Ryou felt rather uncomfortable with all the questioning. What did it matter if Serenity Wheeler kissed his cheek? She was just a girl, just a friend of his sister's. Ryou felt nothing towards her. And even if he did, it was nothing compared to the love he held for the boy sitting before him.

"Will you marry her?" Akefia unexpectedly inquired, slowly, despondently, as if the mere thought killed him inside.

Ryou opened his mouth to reply, but snapped his jaw shut before any noise could escape. He released a quick breath through his nose, turning his head to the side so he wouldn't have to stare into Akefia's dejected gray-blue eyes.

The truth was... his parents did wish for him to marry Serenity Wheeler.

The Wheelers had always been close friends of the Bakuras, and they owned a large plantation which brought in large profits yearly. His parents wanted to join the two families together; they said it would be a wise decision, a smart match. But Ryou did not think so; he did not love Serenity – no matter how pretty or kind she was, or how well she spoke– and he certainly did not want to marry her. Nor did he want to marry any girl.

The only person he wanted, the only one he would ever consider wishing to spend his life with, was Akefia. Akefia, a slave. One of those his parents and peers called nigger; someone who could offer him nothing, _nothing_ – not even a family.

Ryou took his time in answering. "...I don't know."

Akefia seemed to understand all the words left unspoken, and he hung his head in defeat, recognizing the fact that he held no place in Ryou's future.

Ryou watched him, chewing on his bottom lip fretfully and picking at the loose threads on his nightgown. He hated to see his friend so sad, and knowing that he was the cause of Akefia's anguish tore Ryou apart within. He wanted Akefia to smile, to see how much Ryou cared for him, to know that Ryou would never willingly leave him; they were friends – couldn't Akefia understand that Ryou would never leave his friend behind?

"Mother and Father want me to," he continued. "But I don't want to. I don't love her. I don't want to have a family and grow old with her."

Akefia raised his head, hesitantly capturing Ryou's eyes. The younger boy was captivated by the many emotions swirling in the icy blue depths, unable to look away even if he yearned to. He crawled closer to the larger, darker form, stopping only when he sat directly in front of the slave.

"Would you marry me?"

Ryou was startled by the words and practically choked on air.

Marry _Akefia_?

No! He couldn't do that. It was impossible. Akefia was a slave. And even if he wasn't – even if he was a normal white boy like Ryou, he was still a boy. They could never be married, no matter how direly they wished to remain together forever as friends.

"D-don't be ridiculous," Ryou negated the idea, shaking his head and releasing a nervous laugh.

Akefia screwed up his eyebrows at the unfamiliar word. He hated when Ryou used terminology he didn't know. "R-ridiculous?"

Yet another reason they could never be married. Akefia just wasn't as smart as Ryou, no matter how frequently the younger boy tried to tutor him.

Ryou suddenly felt frustrated with the older male – frustrated that Akefia needed explanations, frustrated that Akefia was making him repeat himself, frustrated that Akefia asked if they could be married when he clearly knew there was no possibility of such a thing ever happening. Most of all, Ryou was frustrated with himself for finding Akefia's proposition of their marriage flattering and agreeable.

Ryou nodded. "Yes, ridiculous," he repeated, elaborating once he caught the look of confusion on the other's face. "Stupid. It means stupid – don't be _stupid_, Akefia."

"Oh..."

They fell silent, both turning their attention elsewhere. After a while, Ryou's hand settled tentatively over the large, calloused hand belonging to his father's slave – who one day would belong to him. Akefia stiffened momentarily before relaxing under the familiar touch and he maneuvered his body – almost black in the darkness, next to Ryou's ethereal pallor – until he and Ryou sat hip-to-hip. He inclined his head to rest on the frail shoulder of his master's son, and Ryou shivered slightly as he felt the cracked lips against his skin.

"Will you leave me?" Akefia inquired. "If you marry her? When you're an adult... Will you forget me and leave me?"

Ryou decided the slave's eyes looked eerily beautiful in the moonlight, practically see-through and glowing blue-white. His own eyes, wide emeralds darkened to a forest green in the night, gazed steadily at the mouth against his shoulder, following the movements of Akefia's lips as he spoke and as he gingerly placed a kiss to the swan-like neck.

"No," Ryou found himself saying, his eyes falling shut as Akefia placed another kiss where his neck and shoulder met. An odd whimper escaped his lips at the strange feeling. It was not entirely unpleasant, and the more Akefia continued to kiss his skin the more Ryou found he enjoyed it.

"I'll never leave you..."

Akefia moved slowly – prepared to stop at any time should Ryou wish him to – placing his lips to the full, pink mouth offered to him, pushing the younger boy on to his back and covering the fair, trembling body with his own. Ryou's unoccupied pale hand embedded itself within the thick white locks it had grown so fond of touching over the years.

Akefia breathed a sigh, breaking away and raising his head to look down upon the blushing youth. Ryou's lips were coated with a thin veil of saliva, which the slave boy wiped away as he traced the small mouth with his thumb.

"...You know I love you."

_Akefia..._

_Would you marry me?_

"I know." He'd always known.

_I'll never leave you._

Ryou gasped quietly as his nightgown was parted and pushed aside, leaving him naked in the dirt beneath Akefia's muscular dark body.

Emerald orbs sparkled in shameless desire – desire for the slave above him, for the one he was forbidden to go near. A hundred beatings with the birch rod could not stop him from feeling this, from wanting Akefia. Not even a thousand lashes from his father's leather belt could keep him from making love to Akefia.

Akefia's blue eyes welled with tears as a joy the likes of which he'd never felt filled his heart nearly to the point of bursting. He smothered Ryou with a kiss, touching the pliant pale body anywhere and everywhere his unworthy hands could reach. And after they broke for air, Ryou kissed away each of the older male's tears, holding the chiseled face tenderly in his hands.

_That night, when I gave myself to him, I realized that I loved him – that I had always loved him, since the day I first saw him, and that I would continue to love him until the day I died._

_And I guess I should have known that, because of this, I was marked for an early grave._

* * *

_A/N: That's all for chapter two. I feel as though I've made Ryou more masculine than Akefia, and certainly more of a brat. (-sweat-) Oh well. _

_...Can anyone guess whose POV is next? 8D_


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